Will Ian Dempsey ever return to RTÉ?

he said it a month or 2 ago though, nothing said since as far as i know

In my case and some other posters, I was speculating about what he might do when he has retired, rather than while still a fulltime presenter.

From what I remember he was on breakfast for a while in 87/88 but when Dempsey Den became popular he was moved to the 12-2 slot for a while and Maxi took over the breakfast slot. Didn’t last very long.

Radio 2FM schedule Feb 88 when Ian was on afternoons and then over to Dempsey's Den from 4pm to 6pm on RTE1 (before the move to 3pm to 6pm Network 2 TV in Autumn 88)

they were identifying for a good while as Radio 2FM or just 2FM before the ‘official’ rebranding early in 1989.

They had finally managed to go 24 hours a day in 1987(!) and had a really nice tv ad to along with it.

I loved the live overnights on Radio 2 / 2FM - no specific playlist just the choice of the DJ and you could hear anything. In the 90s these shifts with the one DJ would last 6 and sometimes 7 hours.

The voicetracked "world web radio" in around 1999 replaced this on 2FM, basically it was the overnight presenter (such as Gerry Wilson) inviting e-mail requests and mentioning weird / wonderful websites that caught his eye !!. Unique at the time I guess but it was never the same as the previous 10/12 years of live overnights.

Pity there is no live overnight radio in Ireland in 2026 and I don't think there has been since I think FM104 was the last Irish station to in the early 2010s ???.

The overnights had a love of “Slave to the Rhythm” by Grace Jones at one stage .. the full 12inch mix. Handy toilet/smoke break tune! Also I think the world web radio branding was in use for a number of years before they became automated, usually with Gerry Wilson.